Take it In
by CharismaticAlpaca
Summary: Rose Weasley's Hogwarts career is not going the way she planned. She can't navigate the school to save her life, none of her reading seems to apply in practice, and the Sorting Hat must be out of its ever-loving woolen mind. But a few unlikely friendships help her to learn that her choices have much more impact than luck alone. Eventually Scorose.
1. Chapter 1

The world looked like a watercolor painting if Rose squinted just right.

All the colors out the window blended together into a wash of hues. Reds and yellows, the first colors of fall, flared up here and there against the background of green and blue. And those colors brought to mind what she was going to endure at the end of the day. Her own Sorting.

Rose was nervous about it; she couldn't deny that. She had been twisting her robes in her hands since she sat down in the compartment next to her cousin Al. Listening in on the other conversations in the compartment wasn't doing her much good, either; James was discussing with Molly whether his brother would be in Slytherin or not, which Albus was either ignoring or stewing over, and Rose was wondering if she should have chosen a different compartment.

"See, he isn't brave _at all_, he really spends too much time watching," James went on. "It's a little creepy. Creepy House for the creepy brother."

"For the last time, there's nothing wrong with Slytherin," Molly sighed, staring out the window with her chin in her hands. "They're clever, and they're ambitious, and they value tradition. I wish you'd stop all this nonsense."

"They live in a _dungeon_, Molly, you've got to admit there's something not right about that."

At that, Al sat up a little straighter, looking like he was actually going to argue. And the door slid open with the cry, "Anything from the trolley?"

Snacks pacified them all, but Rose found that she couldn't eat her chocolate frog. All the reading she had done, and nothing could really prepare her for this. It wasn't as if she hadn't tried; gone through hundreds of personality tests on the Internet at night, for one, and asked all her friends and family where they thought she'd end up. Nothing could tell her what the hat was going to say once it settled down on her head.

She was finally drawn from her thoughts when the train ground to a halt. They were here. They were really here. She sprang up from her seat, startling Al, and almost tripped over him in her hurry to get off the train. Steam obscured everything around her, but the sky was clear and blue, and she could just make out a few dark spires over the thick clusters of trees all around.

With a _thunk_, Al hopped onto the platform behind her. "Why'd you run off, Rosie?"

"Oh, sorry, Al." They moved aside to let the rest of students onto the platform. The crowd that quickly gathered was overwhelming, and she had no idea where to go, but then a deafening cry of "Firs' years! Firs' years, over here!" put her at ease. She joined a sea of dark robes, staring up at a giant of a man. He had a dark beard streaked with gray and wore tattered robes and had the kindest black eyes Rose had ever seen.

Somewhere in the crowd, Rose caught her cousin's voice. "Hi, Hagrid!"

"James! Have a good summer, did yeh?" The man raised a massive hand and waved. "Stay outta trouble?"

Rose looked over her shoulder in time to see him shrug. "I guess."

"You guess wrong," Albus muttered.

"Well, better get goin', don't miss the carriages. Firs' years, come along, all of yeh!" He turned his gaze back towards the crowd at his feet. So this was the groundskeeper. He was a little scarier than Rose remembered anyone mentioning, but she had a feeling she couldn't make that judgement yet. He raised his arms once more, indicating the forest ahead. "No fallin' behind, 'specially you little ones in the back. Follow me."

A little path through the increasingly dark forest led them to a shoreline. Black water gently lapped the pebbles on the beach, and a row of boats awaited them. Albus helped Rose get into one, and it looked as if he only did it because he wanted to stay on land as long as possible. Rose tried to help him in, in turn, but the boat rocked and he toppled over, bumping his head on a bench.

"This is turning out to be a bad day," he grumbled, and Rose patted him sympathetically on the head and helped him up.

"It'll get better," she told him. "Soon, we'll be eating a feast in the Great Hall, and then we'll be seeing our common rooms—"

"Our _dungeons,_" Al said miserably.

"I hear it's cozy enough," Rose said, trying not to think too hard about it.

The boat rocked again, and Rose looked up. Two boys were climbing in; one with dark brown hair in a ponytail and a cheerful look on his face, and the other so pale he looked like a ghost.

"Spooky, isn't it?" the first boy said, gesturing towards the lake. "Did you know there's a giant squid in there? I'd love to see it up close."

Rose and Albus exchanged a glance.

"Sorry." The boy held out his hand. "Lorcan. Lorcan Lovegood-Scamander."

Rose shook it first, telling him her name, and Al followed suit a little more hesitantly. Then the other boy sat down next to Lorcan, and Rose looked to him. "What's your name?" she asked.

"Scorpius," he said, looking slightly to the left of her head.


	2. Chapter 2

The towers of the castle stood out against the inky-blue sky, and lights speckled the stone walls. Its reflection glittered on the water, and as they sailed over it, Rose reached out and touched the image of a lone window. It rippled in response.

As they drew closer, the castle appeared to float on a cloud; a dark void filled the space beneath the lights, and suddenly they were sailing into it. She realized it was a cliff, and they were sailing into some dark space beneath it. A light flickered to life, not attached to anything, on the front of their boat. They were in a cave.

Finally, the boat slowed itself and bumped gently against a shore. Rose stood up on shaky legs and climbed out onto another pebbly beach. The only sound came from the crunch of the pebbles under her feet; there was a stillness over all the new arrivals, as if they shared some secret knowledge that this was never to be forgotten.

Albus climbed out after her, then Scorpius and Lorcan. Hagrid was far ahead of them. Three knocks echoed through the chamber. A light appeared high up in the darkness, illuminating a wide staircase, and a figure descended them quietly.

"This way, please," a woman's voice said. The students followed her up the staircase, some of them clinging to each other, others trying to insist they were fine on their own. Rose held onto Al's arm to make it look like he wasn't holding onto hers. The door led them to a massive room, but the woman took them into another, this one just big enough for all the new arrivals to fit snugly inside.

Inside, Rose got her first good look at their guide. She was extremely tall, and might have been frightening if not for her warm smile. Her tightly-curling hair was held back by a colorful cloth that contrasted sharply with her plain black robes. "Welcome to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," she said. "My name is Professor Onyango. I teach Astronomy, so we will be getting to know each other quite well over the next several months.

"In a few moments, you will be sorted into your Houses. During your time here, your House will be like a family to you; you will share a dormitory and common room, and you will take classes together. However, it is important to remember that Hogwarts is one school, and I hope you will do your best to be excellent examples of Hogwarts students."

That was different from her dad's descriptions of how Houses worked. She remembered long rants about the rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin, and how they hated having classes together because none of the students ever got along. Of course, she also remembered her mother hissing _"Ron!" _and going on about how inter-House unity was far more important than silly competitions these days.

Professor Onyango went into a description of the different Houses, and of the House Cup, and none of that information was different from how her family had described it. Then the woman bid them to wait until they were called, and she left the little room.

As soon as the door closed, a wave of cold air slammed into Rose, and she jumped as a crowd of pearly-white, translucent forms swept across the room. They were absorbed in conversation, but a few slowed down to wave to the first-years, and a rather mousy-looking ghost floated up to Albus. Rose noted uncomfortably that he looked far younger than the rest of them.

"You look like a friend of mine from when I was in school!" he said, hopping around like an excited owl. "He was really cool, taught me a lot, leader of Dumbledore's Army and all that. His name was Harry—"

Another of the ghosts called, "Oy, Creevey!" and the ghost waved goodbye and swept away.

Professor Onyango opened the door and waved them through, single-file.

The Great Hall was everything Rose had imagined and more.

She couldn't keep her eyes off the ceiling; with all the reading she had done, she was able to spot several constellations in the darkness overhead. She heard a crowd of students cheering for her and the other first years. She smelled the odor of thousands of candles. But all she saw was the ceiling.

Al had to drag her along, and she only looked down when the Sorting Hat began its song.

Applegate, Jamie was a Hufflepuff.

She was engulfed by a cluster of them that sat near the front of the hall. Yellow speckled the entire crowd; the colors were not segregated, but intermingled, though each of the four Houses had a large group awaiting their new arrivals. For the first time, her fear of being put in a different House than Albus started to wane.

Bulstrode, Paisley went to Slytherin, which was very loud in congratulating her, and she was immediately followed by Crow, Aofie and Crowley, Magnus. The tattered old hat seemed to know immediately for some of them, and for others, like Harvey, Sabian, it took long, anxious, silent minutes. The worst were the ones for whom the hat itself sounded a little hesitant. As if they didn't truly belong somewhere.

What would happen if the hat _couldn't_ place her? What if she was put right back on the train and sent home? What would her parents say?

Professor Onyango called Lovegood-Scamander, Lorcan, and he was in Hufflepuff almost before the hat touched his head. Then, to Rose's amazement, an exact copy of Lorcan—referred to by the professor as Lysander—was deposited in Ravenclaw. Twins. Twins in _different Houses_. Rose felt quite certain she needed to sit down.

And then, as if things couldn't get any worse, Professor Onyango called for Malfoy, Scorpius.

The crowd went silent; so eerily that Rose glanced around to make sure nothing was wrong. They were all staring at this small, pale boy with the near-white hair and the elfin face. Some, to Rose's horror, regarded him with outright distaste.

Slowly, the normal level of murmuring picked up again, but Rose exchanged a glance with Albus and mouthed, _What's wrong?_

"His dad was a Death Eater, remember?" the boy whispered back.

"But _he_ wasn't!" she hissed. "Why are they upset at him? That's not right!"

The hat was dropped onto his head. Rose folded her hands behind her back, waiting. It was silent. Scorpius shook his head now and then, and his lips moved in a furious whispered conversation with what Rose could only assume was the hat.

Then the hat opened its great tear of a mouth, as if it were about to speak, and Scorpius shook his head so vigorously that it nearly fell off.

"Gryffindor," the hat declared.

The group of them leapt up and cheered, welcoming him in, though he looked just as surprised as the Slytherins across the room.

Rose didn't miss the few members of his new House who backed away when he drew nearer.

Overdove, Kenneth was a Ravenclaw. Pennington, Grace followed Scorpius into Gryffindor.

"Potter, Albus," called Professor Onyango.

When he left Rose's side, she realized he had been clinging to her arm since they had entered the hall. He looked rather like he was walking to his doom. Professor Onyango dropped the hat on his head, and Rose started counting.

After ten seconds, Al whispered something.

After eighteen seconds, he whispered something else.

After twenty-nine seconds, he looked frightened.

After thirty-six seconds, the frightened look was replaced by a thoughtful one, and he nodded slowly.

As soon as Rose counted forty, the hat trumpeted, "Slytherin!"

Rose felt cold. Albus, to her complete confusion, did not look distressed at all, and he was welcomed by the tide of green across the room. They clapped him on the back, shook his hand, introduced themselves as the hat kept right on filing. After Way, Enobby, Rose was called.

The murmurs in the hall were muffled as her head disappeared into the hat.

"What have we here?" a small voice said. "Hmm… you're a clever one, aren't you? But you got that way through hard work…"

"Why did you put Albus in Slytherin?" she whispered.

"Don't concern yourself with him, now, this is your time." It shuffled further down onto her head, obscuring what little she could still see of the hall. "Yes, a hard worker indeed, and you follow the rules. Kind to your little brother and your friends… I know where you belong…

"Hufflepuff!"

This day had not gone how she had expected at all.

Scorpius Malfoy watched her from the circle of Gryffindors. Albus Potter watched from the Slytherins. And a group of Hufflepuffs absorbed her cheerily. Did the sorting hat really know what it was doing?

Was her father going to disown her, like he had joked at the train station?


	3. Chapter 3

Rose was barely paying attention as a chattering prefect whose name she hadn't caught led the first-years to their new common room. By the time she realized she should be taking note of the twists and turns, they were descending a final set of stairs and passing the door to the kitchens. She made a begrudging mental note to stick close to Lorcan over the next few days, because he was watching the prefect with rapt attention and something like stars in his eyes.

"This is the entrance," the girl said, stopping by a large painting of a bowl of fruit. "Anyone want to hazard a guess as to how you can get in?"

"Ask nicely?" Jamie Applegate suggested.

"Not quite, but close." The prefect winked, and she pointed to the image of a fat, juicy-looking pear in the painting. "You just…"

She tickled it.

Rose's jaw dropped. The painting swung out, revealing a corridor. What kind of a password was that? It couldn't possibly keep out intruders… But, then again, she never would have thought to tickle a pear.

"Make sure it's the pear you tickle, or you'll get doused in vinegar," the prefect said cheerily, and she crawled into the corridor. They all followed, Rose lagging behind. Something about entering the common room felt so… final. She only gave in and hauled herself through when she realized Lorcan was standing by her and watching her expectantly.

She had to admit, it was wonderful. Logs cracked in a fireplace at the far end of the room. Enough patchwork couches and overstuffed armchairs were scattered about for every first-year and then some. Two perfectly round doors flanked the fireplace, and the prefect explained that the one on the left led to the girls' dormitories, and the right led to the boys'. Rose followed her through the door, down a tunnel of a hallway, and into a smaller room; this one was also perfectly round, pinwheeled with beds covered by black-and-yellow patchwork quilts.

Her trunk was placed neatly beside one of them, and she stumbled up to it. The weight of the day hit her all at once, and she collapsed, falling asleep immediately.

* * *

><p>When she awoke, her head hurt, and her eyes wanted desperately to stay closed but she forced herself to open them anyway. Morning light filtered gently through three windows near the top of the wall across from her. Many of the beds were empty already, and about three-quarters of them were unmade. She attributed that to what house she was in.<p>

The bed right next to her, though, still held Jamie Applegate. The girl leaned back on a pile of pillows, staring at her propped-up knees. Was she reading? Rose sat up to get a better look. She held a little black object that Rose recognized as a Muggle telephone; her mother had one but rarely used it. There was nothing on the glass bit. "Why'd you bring that?" she asked, yawning.

"It won't turn on," Jamie said, miserably clicking a button on the top of the device. "I thought service might be spotty, but it won't even turn on."

"Muggle technology doesn't work here." Rose stretched and swung her legs to the floor. Her bed was mostly made, as she hadn't pulled the covers down last night, and she was still wearing her uniform. It was a good thing she'd packed more than one set.

"I told my parents I would call them once I got settled." Her head lolled back on the pillows. "Why won't it turn on…?"

"Didn't they know it wouldn't work at Hogwarts?" Rose looked up from her trunk to stare at Jamie, confused.

"We didn't know I had magic until last month," she muttered. "Professor Onyango came to my house with my acceptance letter."

Rose's mouth turned into a perfect 'o.' How was it possible not to know? She had a assumed that even Muggle-borns would realize they had magic early on. "But… didn't strange things happen when you were little? Didn't you figure it out?"

"Stuff happened, yeah, but we always passed it off as nothing." She sighed and set the phone on her bedside table. "I didn't really believe it until I got here, you know? Even with all the stuff Professor Onyango did to prove she was telling the truth." She kicked off the blankets and reached into her trunk, pulling out a robe and a sweater. "I've never done magic knowingly before. I never thought it was possible. It's all just… too much to take in."

Rose nodded sympathetically, but she had no idea what words would comfort the girl.


	4. Chapter 4

There was little time left to get ready. Rose had a full schedule of classes that day, and first up was Transfiguration. This had seemed tricky when she was reading about it; far more complicated than Charms, or even Potions, but she hoped it would be easier in practice.

It wasn't.

The Transfiguration teacher was a short and severe-looking man with a neatly trimmed beard and piercing grey eyes, whom the chalkboard identified as Professor Arrow. After the class took their seats, he silently placed a match at each desk. Rose frowned and exchanged a glance with Jamie, who shrugged.

The professor returned, heels clicking, to the front of the class and turned to face them. His eyes flicked to each of the students, and he looked like he was expecting something, but Rose hadn't the slightest idea what that might be. Evidently, neither did the rest of the class, because they all stared at him with their heads tilted to the side.

"Well?" He crossed his arms. "Turn them into needles."

Rose struggled not to look at Jamie again, because she knew she would be caught and probably lose points for Hufflepuff, the way this was going. The book, which she had read twice already, had described how to do it, but Rose had never waved a wand before this.

_Focus,_ she told herself. The book had said to picture the resulting object very clearly, to recite the incantation, and to wave the wand in a very complicated motion which made Rose think of swatting flies.

She thought of a sewing needle her grandmother had used to repair a torn blouse, stared at the match in front of her, and said, "Commutavi!"

The match just sat there. Rose realized that she had been the first one to speak, and the class was otherwise dead silent. She looked up to find everyone staring at her. Professor Arrow, though, was smiling. She must have done something correctly.

The classroom grew much louder at that. Some students seemed to be trying to copy her, waving their wants erratically and pronouncing the incantation wrong. Others sheepishly flipped through their books, searching for the spell. No one made any sort of progress whatsoever.

After Rose was frustrated almost to the point of walking out of class, Professor Arrow cleared his throat. The class went silent.

"Transfiguration is not a branch of magic that is easily mastered." He erased the chalkboard with a flick of his wand. "It takes a great deal of dedication to master the technique required for the simplest spells. Even this one, for instance…"

He spent the next hour of class scrawling notes on the board, lecturing them as he went. Chalk dust floated around his head, and Rose struggled to keep up.

Looking as if she was about to use the matches to prop open her eyelids, Jamie whispered in Rose's ear, "I don't think this is possible."

Without missing a beat, Professor Arrow whipped around, waved his wand, and turned Jamie and Rose's table into a pig.

"On the contrary, Miss Applegate," he said, flashing them a smile. He turned back around and started scrawling again, and their desk oinked contentedly.

Jamie, sitting still as a statue, turned sheet-white.

By the end of class, Lorcan had succeeded in making a hole in one end of his match, but none of them had anything resembling a needle. When they were finally released, the Hufflepuffs spilled out of the room looking like they hadn't slept for a week. Lorcan walked beside Rose, and he was scanning the piece of parchment he had marked with their schedule. "Lunch now," he said, sounding relieved.

"Thank heaven," Jamie muttered. Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides, and her voice shook. "I still can't believe that happened. Do you suppose he changed it back?"

"I hope so," Rose said, trying to imagine the look on the next class's faces if they found a pig in the room. The spell had been hard enough to attempt upon a desk that didn't move.

Lorcan, who seemed to know where he was going, led them through the hallways and into the Great Hall. The room was already full of chattering students. As it had been at the feast, the boundaries of the Houses were not clearly defined. Rose searched the crowds of students for Albus, but she couldn't spot him, and she didn't want to lose Jamie and Lorcan to go look.

Lorcan led them right up to a small group of Ravenclaws, and Rose noticed his twin sitting with them. Lysander, in the middle of a conversation, hardly even looked up before he scooted over to make space for his brother.

"No, I distinctly remember that the _leaves_ are poisonous," Lysander was saying. "That's what Professor Longbottom said, too. The root is harmless."

"He said you can make tea out of it." Sabian Harvey was picking tomatoes off of a sandwich. "You'd have to use the leaves, wouldn't you?"

"You can make tea out of roots." Lysander looked exasperated. "Haven't you had ginger tea?"

"I don't like tea."

"How can't you like _tea_?"

"Herbology go well, then?" Lorcan cheerily interrupted. "Transfiguration's brutal. Read the book before you go, or you'll never get it; our professor…"

Taking a plate of food from the spread in front of her, Rose sat and let her eyes wander the hallway. She had to know someone around here. With all of the cousins she had, it was only a matter of time before she ran into family. But the vast majority of the faces around her were unfamiliar.

Until her eyes found Scorpius Malfoy at the next table.

He was sitting on the edge of a cluster of Gryffindors and Ravenclaws. His hand, clutching a quill, rested on a sheet of parchment in front of him, and a hardly-touched plate of food held down the top corner of the page. He squinted at it, as if he were considering a particularly difficult question, but Rose couldn't imagine anyone would be working on homework so early.

She worked slowly on her own lunch, half-listening to the conversation. Lysander was describing the health benefits of tea to a reluctant Sabian. Soon, they were getting to their feet, and Lorcan tapped her on the shoulder.

"It's time for Potions," he said.

"I'll be there in a minute," she said, not considering how she was going to find it without the help of someone who mysteriously knew his way around the castle already.

Lorcan shrugged and said, "See you soon, then." The rest of the group left, and slowly the Hall started to clear out.

Scorpius had made no progress on whatever he was writing.

Rose finally got to her feet and made her way over, stopping across the table from him. "What's that?" she asked, peering down.

He glanced up, then moved his sleeve to cover what he had written. "Nothing." He wasn't fast enough to keep Rose from seeing the word "Father" written at the top of the page in elegant, curling script.

She sat down across from him, biting her lip. The look he gave her wasn't quite firm enough of a glare.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"I am fine." He didn't move his arm. "I… don't know how to tell my father where I was sorted, that's all."

"Are you scared?"

"No!" His scowl was real, then.

"You're a Gryffindor, aren't you? You're not supposed to be scared of anything."

"That's not what it means." He drew the parchment closer to him, but stopped trying to hide it. "I'm not scared to tell him, I don't know how."

"I haven't even thought about that yet," Rose admitted. "All my relatives are in Gryffindor."

Scorpius cast a glance toward a lingering group of Slytherins. "Not all." There, she finally saw Albus. He was laughing; joking with them. None of the students looked particularly conniving.

Rose's shoulders dropped, and she wasn't sure what to call the feeling in her belly. "How'd you find him? I've been looking the whole time."

"Potions with Slytherin." Setting down his quill, he picked up the letter and started to roll it up.

Rose put out a hand to stop him. "Wait. What would you say if you were talking to him right now?"

"My father?" He blinked. "'I'm in Gryffindor.'"

"Then write that."

"You don't understand." He finished rolling it and reached for his bag.

"It makes sense to me. You're writing a letter because you can't talk to him."

He stared at her for a moment, squinting, then finally sighed and smoothed the parchment back out. The quill squeaked as he drew it across the paper, and he turned the letter to show it to her.

_Father,_

_I'm in Gryffindor._

_-Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy_

"Hyperion?" Rose blinked.

He snatched the letter away, stuffed it in his bag, and walked briskly away.


End file.
